Yeniçağa Lake. Photo: Yeniçağa Belediyesi (Municipality). Once a popular swimming spot, Yeniçağa Lake in the northwestern Turkish province of Bolu has become too polluted even to sustain the healthy fish populations once found there. But thanks to an international restoration effort, the lake is slowly recovering, to the benefit not just of the local environment, but the global fight against
Continue reading …MSI is calling this GT680R the world’s fastest gaming laptop. Spoiler alert — it’s not — but if you drop $1,650 to nab one starting this week, you’ll certainly be getting some bang for those bucks. Trusted Reviews and Hot Hardware recently got their hands on the first Sandy Bridge -equipped portable monster of a gaming rig, and found the experience quite satisfying on the whole. Though Hot Hardware discovered that the 2.0GHz Core i7-2630QM chip and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics weren’t quite capable of playable framerates in the most demanding DX11 titles at native 1080p, lowering the resolution to 720 lines usually did the trick, and when it came to raw CPU benchmarks that Core i7 held its own against even last-gen desktop processors with little trouble to speak of. What’s more, equipped with a nine-cell battery Trusted Reviews managed to eke out three hours of life in a basic productivity test, practically unheard of for a laptop of this class, though we suppose you’re not likely to be carrying around this 7.7 pound beast for the sake of portable spreadsheets, eh? Hit up our source links for more details. MSI’s GT680 gaming laptop reviewed: potent at 720p, some battery life too originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Survivor kids. Image credit:J. Laumer The ‘ kill EPA’ strategy espoused by both 2012 -Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Texas Republican Party does seem to make political advocacy sense. In theory, the argument goes, ‘ if the US had the kind of lax environmental protections China currently does, manufacturing jobs would return – or at least continued outsourcing would be slowed. ‘ That’s a gut simple, politically attractive notion isn’t it? There are big problems with it, though…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …Click here to view this media House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says it’s not a threat. Even as he admitted that not raising the debt ceiling would mean a “financial disaster” for the US and the world, the Speaker implied Sunday that Republicans would hold the debt limit hostage if Democrats didn’t agree to deep spending cuts. “I know you’re not threatening to default, but do you agree with administration officials and other economists that defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States would be a financial disaster?” Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Boehner. “That would be a financial disaster,” the Speaker agreed. “Not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy. Remember, the American people on election day said we want to cut spending and we want to create jobs. You can’t create jobs if you default on the federal debt.” “Listen, there has been a spending spree going on in Washington the last couple of years that is beyond control,” he added. “And the president is going to ask us to increase the debt limit, he’s going have to be willing to cut up the credit cards. We’ve got to work together by listening to the American people, and reducing these obligations that we have.” “So, defaulting on the full faith and credit is unacceptable to you?” Wallace pressed. “I don’t think it’s a question that is even on the table,” Boehner replied. But for several Republican lawmakers, the issue did seem to be on the table. Following big Republican wins in the November midterm elections, tea party favorite Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) suggested that refusing to raise the debt limit should be the first order of business. Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Jack Kingston (R-GA) have pledged to vote against an increase. Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowed to vote against the dept limit, as did Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to hold the debt ceiling hostage over cuts to Social Security. Republican senators provided an average of 39 votes to raise the debt ceiling while George W. Bush was president, but only one supported the increase under President Barack Obama.
Continue reading …Egypt’s vast protest movement is showing signs of converging behind a single leader: Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei . Various opposition groups threw their support behind him today, none more significant than the controversial Muslim Brotherhood. ElBaradei addressed the throngs at a rally in downtown Cairo, despite the curfew that exists in…
Continue reading …CAPTION: The leader of a long-outlawed Tunisian Islamist party was welcomed at the airport by thousands of cheering supporters on Sunday as he returned to his homeland after more than two decades in exile. (Jan. 30)
Continue reading …No one wants the Muslim Brotherhood to take over, no one wants violence – just elections and a new constitution This is a sweet, sweet revolution; it is peaceful. Tell everyone we are peaceful. We do not owe this revolution to the Muslim Brotherhood, not to anybody. They say the Ikhwan is more organised – maybe. But this is the people on the street; this is not about any political party. Look, he says, more and more people are coming; Tahrir Square is getting more and more full. I am sorry, the man tells me, but I hate your president. What is this speech he gives? Why can’t he support us? He says we can have human rights but he gives us no political rights? To America, we are monkeys, monkeys, monkeys. We Egyptians don’t deserve a constitution, don’t deserve freedom, don’t deserve democracy. We are in the streets every day since 25 January and you give us Omar Suleiman , an agent? We are out here demanding our rights and you give us the head of intelligence? We will not accept Suleiman. America puts the security of Israel above the people of Egypt. We are monkeys to America. They are saying we Egyptians don’t deserve political rights, don’t deserve freedom. It’s over… the fact that the outside world continues to engage this guy Mubarak is ridiculous. It’s over. This has nothing to do with any political party. It is truly a popular movement. There is concern about what is going to happen next. We need to continue to experience this with joy. We have to remain peaceful until we get our demands. Look, there are more and more people walking into Tahrir Square. We want new elections to set up a committee to write a new constitution. We want clean elections; once we have a new constitution, we can elect a new government. We are not less than South Africa. Tell the Americans we are not less than South Africa. We deserve our rights. So far the judges have not spoken yet. We are waiting to hear from the judges about bringing about the constitutional changes that we need. But the judges are not being allowed to speak to the people. Clinton just spoke: she says we deserve human rights. We want political rights. Please tell the people in America we want our rights. Please explain we don’t have internet. Everyone has to understand that the rights of the Egyptian people are being sold for Israel’s security. Our rights are being sold. It’s as if we are monkeys. They have one strategic consideration and that’s Israel. We sleep at night in fear. We sleep without police at night. Do you know what that’s like? To wake up one day and there’s no police, no prisons, no safety? The police is over. We are scared. The curfew was for 6pm and the police were told to go home. There are two theories of what happened to the police a) the police were shocked by the people’s reaction, got scared and took off b) the ministry of the interior is teaching us a lesson, so they withdrew the police to scare us. But it backfired. We were out all night in the streets guarding our neighbourhood in Zamalek. Together, neighbour with neighbour. We worked together. Most of us hadn’t even met before this. The ministry of the interior pulled all the police to scare us: it backfired. We are taking care of each other. There is too much anger at police. Some are good and tried to stop the chaos. But there is a lot of anger: in one neighbourhood someone got shot. The interior ministry is under siege; they are shooting live ammunition into the crowds. There is a street battle. This is why they turned the phones back on because the ministry of interior people needed to be able to talk to each other – they had no phones themselves, they were using walkie-talkies. In some police stations, there are stand-offs. Police are trapped and they are shooting. The army needs to take over the interior ministry. Nothing short of this. The level of demand is high. The people are so aware, they know what they want. The majority of people are happy but some are scared and concerned about what will happen next. No one wants the Muslim Brotherhood to take over, no one wants violence. We are being peaceful, tell them we are being peaceful. On Thursday night they shut down the internet. Khalas . Tell them we have no contact, no texting, no internet, nothing. Listen, they are chanting in the streets: “Gamal, Gamal, tell your father we hate you.” Are the crowds anti-US, I ask. Not so far, no anti-American sentiments in the crowds. They have brought back the slogan from the 1980s: “Mubarak traitor, agent of Americans.” It’s a sweet, peaceful revolution. Tell them. Look, more and more people are coming into Tahrir… Egypt Protest Middle East Amr Shalakany guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The government could soon prosecute a few Wall Streeters who allegedly played a role in the financial crisis, and the commission that uncovered those at fault was modeled on a similar probe after the Great Depression. So did anyone who precipitated that collapse ever go to jail? Nope, writes Brian…
Continue reading …While a relative calm can be seen in many parts of Cairo, the anger and fear among ordinary Egyptians is still there. Jacky Rowland reports on the mood on the streets.
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